Newbie : Android: Need help in identifying the icon shortcut

[ajipaul]

My wife installed some app on her Android phone and that created tons of shortcuts such as "Free Tone", "Free Tones", "Spy on Her", "Ring Music", "Market", "Droid App", "Droid Apps" , "Mobile Spy" and so forth. I do not want to click and find out what it does and at the same time I would like to know where these shortcuts are pointing at.

Something like(in windows) "right button click"--> "Properties" in windows

Does any one know how to identify the shortcut property in Android?

Thanks, AP

 

[Paul627g]

Welcome to Android Central.

First you can drag and drop these to the trash bin... Click on them and start to drag them either up or down and your little trash bin icon will appear.

2nd... Look in her app list anything out of the normal for her usual apps? How about the notification window? Should show any recently installed applications unless it was already cleared out.

Depending on which device & UI (Touchwiz/Sense,Blur, etc.) you can pull up the recent apps list and see if something shows there...

 

[B. Diddy]

It really sounds like your wife may have installed a shady app. Best case scenario, it's just annoying you by creating various shortcuts. Worst case scenario, it could be malware. Try to uninstall it as soon as you can. Also, install a free security program like Lookout or Avast Antivirus (both highly reputable), and do a scan.

 

[ajipaul]

Thanks Paul and Diddy!
someone suggested to turn the phone i to airplane mode the check .
So ,It launches a webpage www dot iconadserve dot com / etc.
She Installed "Fitness pal" instead of myfitnesspal.

Checked all the icons and all point to iconadserve. Do you know how to block this site.

 

[B. Diddy]

I looked at the reviews on Google Play, and others complain of installing various other unwanted icons like yours. Probably just annoyingware, but could be malware. Uninstall anything and everything related to that app. And I can't emphasize enough--install a good security app like Lookout or Avast.

 

[David Harvey Syd]

Hi folks.
I am new in here. I recently bought myself a Sony Xperia and have put a whole heap of apps on it. And now I find I am getting the same thing. So far there are two widgets (shortcut icons) that have appeared on one of my 5 available screens and while I was able to remove them a week ago, they are back and this time they cannot be removed. What is more, they have changed all the touch sensors on the phone so I am going crazy trying to do anything, since the icons I press don't do anything, but other nearby icons will launch. And it makes page-turning impossible and scrolling thru the apps in Settings an exercise in intense frustration.

I have loaded half a dozen different antivirus and anti-malware apps on the phone and nothing has found anything. i have even starting deleting any apps I suspect of being dodgy. But so far that has been a waste of time and effort as well. I have 400+ apps on the phone. Wow.

I cannot drag to delete the two malware widgets, Touching them sets other near apps from the affected screen/page. But I can press the 2 widgets which brings up my browser. I am then redirected through iconadserve dot com, ads.appia dot.com and ads-x dot co (a UK based domain). The browser then calls up Google Play and sends me to download or install the following games. Both are suspiciously large, at around 25 Mb each. I have NOT installed them.

The suss games are: Slotomania by PLAYTIKA, 25.25 Mb; and Tap Paradise Cove by Pocket Gems, 24.69 Mb.

Any help in removing this crap from my machine will be much appreciated. Thanks.

David Harvey in Sydney, Australia.

 

[B. Diddy]

Yikes! If you don't want to do a factory reset (which would mean having to reinstall all of your apps), you could try clearing the data from your launcher. Go to Settings/Apps/All Apps, and find something along the lines of "Launcher" or "Home screen" (it can vary by manufacturer), tap it, then clear the data. This should reset your homescreens to their default state, and hopefully get rid of the offending widgets temporarily.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[David Harvey Syd]

Thanks for the suggestion, B. Diddy.

I did two factory resets last night. The first one (which left my icons and settings) did not get rid of it, but the full reset did allow me to delete the @#$%%#@ icons. And I am pretty sure the malware is gone now. However I have a tiny 16 Gb memory card with stuff on it, and I wonder if I should just format that as well. Nothing I scanned my phone with before found the malware, and I had half-a-dozen different security apps on the phone, including a paid version of AVG. Sigh.

Cheers,

David

 

[B. Diddy]

Thanks for the suggestion, B. Diddy.

I did two factory resets last night. The first one (which left my icons and settings) did not get rid of it, but the full reset did allow me to delete the @#$%%#@ icons. And I am pretty sure the malware is gone now. However I have a tiny 16 Gb memory card with stuff on it, and I wonder if I should just format that as well. Nothing I scanned my phone with before found the malware, and I had half-a-dozen different security apps on the phone, including a paid version of AVG. Sigh.

Cheers,

David

If you want to be completely safe, you could format the SD card, but you probably don't have to. You could always plug it into your desktop/laptop and delete everything except for your photos/videos/music. Make sure you set the view options in Windows Explorer to "Show hidden files" to be sure you don't miss anything, although I'm not aware of any Android malware that places files that are hidden from Windows.

Security apps for Android are by no means foolproof, and there are plenty of people who think they're a waste of time because of the low prevalence of malware for Android. In comparison to Windows, that may be true--but I still think it's wise to stay ahead of the curve and keep a good security app installed on your device, because sooner or later, we'll hit a tipping point and Android malware will probably explode. I would suggest, however, not to have more than one security app installed at a time, because just like on Windows, multiple security apps could interfere with each other and bog the system down.

 

[B. Diddy]

And I can't emphasize enough--install a good security app like Lookout or Avast.

??? Are you agreeing with me or being ironic?

 

[David Harvey Syd]

I already had Lookout loaded, but I don't think I had tried Avast.

I think I will go and format the SD card now. Aaaargh! :-(